The Effect of Clients’ Financial Resources, Mental Health, and Motivation on Frontline Workers’ Burden Reduction and Prioritizations

Abstract

The street-level bureaucracy literature shows that frontline workers’ decisions about clients are shaped by perceptions of deservingness based on clients’ demographic characteristics and behavioral conduct. Yet, we know little about whether frontline workers also act on clients’ financial resources and mental health, despite the administrative burden literature identifying these two factors as central to how citizens experience compliance demands. We contribute to both literatures by developing and testing preregistered hypotheses that examine how information about clients’ financial resources and mental health shapes frontline workers’ burden reduction and client prioritization. To do this, we run a large-scale vignette experiment with 775 caseworkers across 39 Danish unemployment agencies, manipulating client age, financial situation, mental health, and motivation but holding gender constant (all clients were male). We find strong evidence that caseworkers reduce burdens and prioritize clients with mental health issues and–consistent with prior work–clients displaying high motivation, alongside some evidence for clients struggling with financial hardship. Importantly, mental health appears more consequential than motivation and financial resources. Contrary to our preregistered expectation, clients with mental health issues received the most support when they also displayed low as opposed to high motivation. Rather than indicating that frontline workers reward low motivation, this pattern most likely reflects that caseworkers interpret low motivation as a symptom of the underlying condition, and thus as a signal of greater need. Our findings show how frontline discretion can operate as a redistributive mechanism that channels support toward clients signaling the greatest need.